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Federal student loans taken out at high rate before July 1, 2013, can't be refinanced Van Jones: Soaring college costs, $1.3 trillion in debt are dragging down a generation Jones: Government makes lots of money off those loans, which goes to corporate subsidies He says tax multimillionaires fairly and allow people to refinance federal loans

If you took out a loan a few years ago to buy a flashy sports car, you could save buckets of money by refinancing at today's low rates.

But if you did the smart thing and took out federal student loans to pay for an education -- sorry, you are out of luck! Federal student loans cannot be refinanced.

If that sounds insane to you, you will like the plan Sen. Elizabeth Warren unveiled in a speech recently at the Center for American Progress.

Last spring, Congress passed bipartisan legislation to lower student loan interest rates as of July 1, 2013. But they did little for people who already had borrowed at higher rates.

Van Jones

Say you took out a loan even a day earlier, on June 30. At that point, the congressionally mandated rate was 6.8%. You are locked into it. No matter what else Congress does to help new borrowers.

Unlike almost every other type of loan, federal student loans are set in stone even if rates change for the better. (There are private refinancing options but they have strict requirements and limited scope.) This might not constitute a crisis if college cost what it did in the 1970s. But with middle class wages flat for decades, the soaring cost of education has become a mammoth debt dilemma dragging down an entire generation.

Today, Americans hold an all-time record $1.3 trillion in student debt. It cannot be discharged by bankruptcy or even death. In some cases, Social Security benefits are being garnished to pay for a grandchild's debt if a grandparent co-signed. Parents are still paying off their own bills while contemplating putting their kids through college.

The solution is simple: Let Americans with federal student loans refinance to today's low rate. But the reason why Congress refuses to act may surprise you.